Professor Seiford is the Goff Smith Co-Director of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations and Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering. He has served as past Chair of the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering (2000-2009) and as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (1997-2000). He received his M.A. and Ph.D. (Mathematics) degrees, University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Seiford's teaching and research interests are primarily in the areas of quality engineering, productivity analysis, process improvement, multiple-criteria decision making, and performance measurement. In addition, he is recognized as one of the world's experts in the methodology of Data Envelopment Analysis. His current research involves the development of benchmarking models for identifying best-practice in manufacturing and service systems. He has written and co-authored four books and over one hundred articles in the areas of quality, productivity, operations engineering, process improvement, decision analysis, and decision support systems. Professor Seiford is past Editor-in-Chief of OMEGA, the International Journal of Management Science, Senior Editor of the DEA Journal, Associate Editor for Operations Research, and has been or is on the editorial boards of nine scientific journals. Dr. Seiford has received the General Electric Outstanding Teaching Award, the CBA Foundation Award for Research Excellence, and has been a Lily Endowment Teaching Fellow. He was awarded the degree Docteur Honoris Causa from the Universite de la Mediterranee, Aix-Marseille II in November, 2000. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), a Fellow of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

Amitabh Sinha is an Associate Professor of Technology and Operations at the Ross School of Business. He arrived at Ross in 2004, after receiving his PhD in Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. He teaches the core Statistics class in various versions of the MBA program, as well as an elective class in Logistics. He recently developed a new lab-style class on Big Data for the MBA program.

Amitabhs current research primarily focuses on the operational aspects of ecommerce/omnichannel retail. For instance, one of his ongoing research projects explores the optimization of order fulfillment by online retailers; another examines the design of retail stores and inventory management for omnichannel fulfillment through stores.

Raymond Muscat is the Industry Director for the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan.

Mr. Muscat’s corporate career has spanned 37 years with a variety of global experiences in the Automotive, Defense Electronics, Aerospace and Office Furniture industries. His experience includes engineering, manufacturing, program management, mergers and acquisitions, global manufacturing strategy development and execution, and the implementation of the Toyota Production System/Lean Manufacturing principles.

Mr. Muscat’s career began in 1978 at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn MI in their Automotive Assembly Division which included projects at Ford’s assembly plants in Louisville KY, Wayne MI, Wixom MI, and Metuchen NJ. In 1980, he joined Raytheon Company’s Submarine Signal Division where he held a variety of manufacturing engineering and program management positions working on surface ship sonar programs. From 1984 – 1986 he worked at Ball Aerospace in Boulder CO developing manufacturing operations for military aircraft antennas. He joined Knoll-Shaw/Walker in Muskegon MI in 1986 and held the positions of Project Engineer, Product Engineering Manager and Director of Engineering – Midwest Operations. Mr. Muscat joined Herman Miller in 1991. He was responsible for engineering, new product development, operations management, corporate quality, mergers and acquisitions, and global facility strategy. He led a core team that developed and implemented the Herman Miller Performance System, Herman Miller’s adaptation of the Toyota Production System/Lean Manufacturing, worldwide. Mr. Muscat has overseen all new North American product launches in Operations since 2001, and was researching the development of new materials and manufacturing processes for the factory of the future. His responsibilities included all North American facilities along with numerous facility construction projects, consolidations and upgrades internationally. He currently serves as Principal, Muscat Consulting, LLC, a Lean Manufacturing, Engineering and Operations consulting firm.

Born in Detroit, Michigan Ray has a BSE in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island. He is the Chairman of the University of Michigan IOE Academic Advisory Board, and has served on the College of Engineering Alumni Society Board among others. Additionally, he has lectured and consulted on the application of Lean principles at the University of Michigan, Michigan Lean Consortium, American Manufacturing Strategies Summit and for State of Michigan employees.